I am sitting right now in our new apartment in Shanghai…having just decided to get up from lying down and sleeping intermittently after a hefty dinner. And it sounds like I have been transported to a horrific war zone. I hear explosions right outside the window and firecrackers so loud they might as well be going off directly inside my eardrum. It’s like someone is shooting a machine gun through our window…well, at least in the courtyard of the apartment complex. But hey! It’s Chinese New Year! Hooray! For an entire week, people (including the security guards 50 feet away) take great pleasure in shooting off firecrackers and fireworks ALL OVER the frickin’ city between the hours of 7pm and 1am. It’s midnight, so I’m in this mess for at least another hour…unless they all get bored or tired or deaf…all unlikely since they are clearly professionals at these shenanigans. Holy moly! It truly is incredible just how much the Chinese love their firecrackers and fireworks, and how no one has yet to step up and say, “This shite is too f-ing loud all the f-ing live long day….how ‘bout a little breather, eh?”
Well, at least I can chalk it up to being an intriguing and enlightening experience…at least.
- Emma
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Harbin Pictures
Here are a small sampling of the pictures that I took on my Harbin trip. I'd match them up and insert them in the other blog entries, but I just don't have time for that...
A picture from my 32-hour train ride to Harbin. Crowded...
As Chinese New Year approached, fireworks stands popped up all over the place. A dream come true.
Sweet bulls made out of soda cans.
Candied fruit on sticks. Pretty much the best thing ever.
Playing one of the ice sculptures.
Dogsleds for pulling people around on the ice. God, I love China.
Another mode of ice transportation. Equally hilarious.
Mickey Moused themed ice sculpture park. Too much for words.
Live animals for sale at the Tiger Park.
Tiger!
This is how they sell ice cream in Harbin. It's that cold!
Ice sculpture castle.
Ice sculpture city.
Park entrance.
Buddhist temple with ferris wheel in the background...
- Jon
A picture from my 32-hour train ride to Harbin. Crowded...
As Chinese New Year approached, fireworks stands popped up all over the place. A dream come true.
Sweet bulls made out of soda cans.
Candied fruit on sticks. Pretty much the best thing ever.
Playing one of the ice sculptures.
Dogsleds for pulling people around on the ice. God, I love China.
Another mode of ice transportation. Equally hilarious.
Mickey Moused themed ice sculpture park. Too much for words.
Live animals for sale at the Tiger Park.
Tiger!
This is how they sell ice cream in Harbin. It's that cold!
Ice sculpture castle.
Ice sculpture city.
Park entrance.
Buddhist temple with ferris wheel in the background...- Jon
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Home Sweet Home
I'm back in Shanghai now and it's nice to be back. It's also nice to be able to feel my hands and feet... A fair amount of interesting stuff has happened recently, but I'm pretty tired and I'm going to leave most of it for another day. Instead, I just want to make two final notes about my trip to Harbin.
1) I have not shaved in almost 2 weeks, so I have quite a homeless man beard going right now. Luckily, in China, this beard brings me lots of respect (particularly from cab drivers and men selling food on the street). I've gotten quite a few universal "I respect and admire you as an accomplished and worldly gentleman" recently. This consist of wild gesturing at my scrub, a ridiculously smiling face, and big thumbs up.
2) On my flight back from Harbin I sat was sitting in between two ladies. As the plane started to taxi out to the runway we all buckled our seatbelts. To my surprise, both of these ladies were then unable to unbuckle their belts. They had no idea what to do and were literally trying to tear the fabric apart to get out. I don't think either had ever flown before... Anyways, they were so grateful for my assistance that they insisted on stuffing me full of homemade dumplings on the flight back. I didn't complain :)
- Jon
1) I have not shaved in almost 2 weeks, so I have quite a homeless man beard going right now. Luckily, in China, this beard brings me lots of respect (particularly from cab drivers and men selling food on the street). I've gotten quite a few universal "I respect and admire you as an accomplished and worldly gentleman" recently. This consist of wild gesturing at my scrub, a ridiculously smiling face, and big thumbs up.
2) On my flight back from Harbin I sat was sitting in between two ladies. As the plane started to taxi out to the runway we all buckled our seatbelts. To my surprise, both of these ladies were then unable to unbuckle their belts. They had no idea what to do and were literally trying to tear the fabric apart to get out. I don't think either had ever flown before... Anyways, they were so grateful for my assistance that they insisted on stuffing me full of homemade dumplings on the flight back. I didn't complain :)
- Jon
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Harbin: Part V
Today I'm going to skip over my usual first paragraph about the unholy cold in Harbin. Suffice it to say that I've never been colder in my life...
I don't have all that much to say today because it was a pretty slow day. Things started off with a successful trip to a 7-tiered Buddist Pagoda and a Confucian temple. It was temple day! The temples were so-so (after traveling through Thailand I think I've become accustomed to large, ostentatious, brilliantly golden temples and the Chinese ones don't make the cut.) The most interesting part of the temple was probably it's neighbor: a 100-foot ferris wheel. This juxtaposition made for some quality photos...
Over the past 4 days in Harbin I've gotten better and better and making my way around town via public transit. At the beginning, I was a pretty hopeless case and I spent a fair amount of time wandering around looking for my destinations (or buses). Now I've combined upgraded map skills, less shyness about asking for directions in Chinese, and a better sense for the city and I'm getting results. Today I shuttled directly to each of my destinations without any trouble. (Side note: my Chinese character studying has really started to pay off in the map reading department).
I've been eating a lot of hot pot in Harbin recently. Hot pot is one style of Chinese cuisine that is particularly popular in the North (and in cold weather in general). Basically, hot pot consists of a boiling pot of spiced oil-based broth that is shared by the whole table. Then you order all sorts of raw dishes (meats, tofu, veggies) and you drop them in the pot and eat whenever they're cooked. It's simple and amazingly delicious :) I've had it for dinner each of the last 3 nights. Yum! I'll probably always associate Harbin with hot pot because of it...
Here is a joke from my Joke of the Day that made me laugh:
- Jon
I don't have all that much to say today because it was a pretty slow day. Things started off with a successful trip to a 7-tiered Buddist Pagoda and a Confucian temple. It was temple day! The temples were so-so (after traveling through Thailand I think I've become accustomed to large, ostentatious, brilliantly golden temples and the Chinese ones don't make the cut.) The most interesting part of the temple was probably it's neighbor: a 100-foot ferris wheel. This juxtaposition made for some quality photos...
Over the past 4 days in Harbin I've gotten better and better and making my way around town via public transit. At the beginning, I was a pretty hopeless case and I spent a fair amount of time wandering around looking for my destinations (or buses). Now I've combined upgraded map skills, less shyness about asking for directions in Chinese, and a better sense for the city and I'm getting results. Today I shuttled directly to each of my destinations without any trouble. (Side note: my Chinese character studying has really started to pay off in the map reading department).
I've been eating a lot of hot pot in Harbin recently. Hot pot is one style of Chinese cuisine that is particularly popular in the North (and in cold weather in general). Basically, hot pot consists of a boiling pot of spiced oil-based broth that is shared by the whole table. Then you order all sorts of raw dishes (meats, tofu, veggies) and you drop them in the pot and eat whenever they're cooked. It's simple and amazingly delicious :) I've had it for dinner each of the last 3 nights. Yum! I'll probably always associate Harbin with hot pot because of it...
Here is a joke from my Joke of the Day that made me laugh:
Three leaders of the big beer companies meet for a drink. The president of Budweiser orders a Bud. Miller's president orders a Millers and the president of Coors orders a Coors. When it is Guinness turn to order he orders a soda. Why didn't you order a Guinness everyone asks? Nah Guinness replies. If you guys aren't having a beer neither will I.
- Jon
Friday, January 23, 2009
Harbin: Part IV
I realized that I have failed to mention the Disney themed ice park that I visited two days ago. This is a major omission. On Wednesday I spent part of my evening exploring Zhaolin Park's ice/light sculptures. Before entering I really had no idea what I was in for... Basically the entire park (maybe 5 acres) was filled with larger than life Disney themed ice buildings and sculptures. There was a section for pretty much every Disney movie you can think of. It was an impressive display and it was obviously constructed with great care and at great expense. We're talking a full-on Disney world in ice. To top things off, pretty much everybody at the park rented little 3-wheel scooters (the kind that handicapped people in the US use) to motor around the park. God knows why, but it added another level of ridiculosness to the whole escapade.
Ok, on to today... I spent the morning on a quest to find the Japanese Germ Warfare museum. Once again, I was misled by some poor Lonely Planet directions (my theory is that the Lonely Planet writer drunk himself into a stupor to ward off the cold while he was writing the Harbin section). After practicing a little Chinese on unsuspecting pedestrians I made my way through the freezing cold to the Germ Warfare base. It was a pretty cool museum, but I had high expectations and was a little disappointed. I guess I've been to some very well-done genocide-related museums (in the US and Israel) and this one seemed less well-planned. That having been said, I really enjoyed the museum and I also had a fun time in the neighborhood. I checked out this one outdoor market nearby that was awesome. It seemed like everybody in town was bustling around preparing for Chinese New Year (and by preparing, I mean buying as much food and fireworks as they could carry). The scene was made even more comical by the immense amounts of clothing everybody was wearing. It looked like the whole population had turned out in sumo suits for the day...
Today's other expedition was to Harbin's Ice and Snow Park on Sun Island. Now, with all of the snow/ice sculpture parks its easy to get confused, but this one is the mother of them all! I made it out to the ice park just before sunset. I wanted to take a bunch of pictures in daylight and then compare them with the night pictures (at night the entire place gets lit up by brightly colored lights embedded in the blocks of ice.) Anyways, I had a terrific time wandering around this city of ice buildings and lights snapping pictures and generally being a tourist. A couple of things of note:
(1) Camels do not belong in Harbin. Nobody should ride them around the ice park for any reason. Chinese people are crazy.
(2) I would have gladly sold out on all of my morals just to feel my feet this evening. I was so cold that I cracked and took refuge in the little heated glass coffeehouses where they force you to buy obscenely over-priced hot chocolate). The sad thing is that I know I would do it again.
Ok, that's it for today from Harbin!
- Jon
Ok, on to today... I spent the morning on a quest to find the Japanese Germ Warfare museum. Once again, I was misled by some poor Lonely Planet directions (my theory is that the Lonely Planet writer drunk himself into a stupor to ward off the cold while he was writing the Harbin section). After practicing a little Chinese on unsuspecting pedestrians I made my way through the freezing cold to the Germ Warfare base. It was a pretty cool museum, but I had high expectations and was a little disappointed. I guess I've been to some very well-done genocide-related museums (in the US and Israel) and this one seemed less well-planned. That having been said, I really enjoyed the museum and I also had a fun time in the neighborhood. I checked out this one outdoor market nearby that was awesome. It seemed like everybody in town was bustling around preparing for Chinese New Year (and by preparing, I mean buying as much food and fireworks as they could carry). The scene was made even more comical by the immense amounts of clothing everybody was wearing. It looked like the whole population had turned out in sumo suits for the day...
Today's other expedition was to Harbin's Ice and Snow Park on Sun Island. Now, with all of the snow/ice sculpture parks its easy to get confused, but this one is the mother of them all! I made it out to the ice park just before sunset. I wanted to take a bunch of pictures in daylight and then compare them with the night pictures (at night the entire place gets lit up by brightly colored lights embedded in the blocks of ice.) Anyways, I had a terrific time wandering around this city of ice buildings and lights snapping pictures and generally being a tourist. A couple of things of note:
(1) Camels do not belong in Harbin. Nobody should ride them around the ice park for any reason. Chinese people are crazy.
(2) I would have gladly sold out on all of my morals just to feel my feet this evening. I was so cold that I cracked and took refuge in the little heated glass coffeehouses where they force you to buy obscenely over-priced hot chocolate). The sad thing is that I know I would do it again.
Ok, that's it for today from Harbin!
- Jon
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Harbin: Part III
Today I was told that yesterday we had a bit of a heat wave in Harbin (temperatures right around -20). This floored me. I think I barely survived yesterday. Heat wave, my foot. Frozen snot on the face is proof enough that we were not in a heat wave. Semantics aside, today was even colder than yesterday and almost painfully so with the wind. Normally I would hide inside on a day like today, but I'm only in Harbin for a couple of days so I boarded the bus and made my way down to my first stop of the day: the Siberian Tiger park. When I read about the tiger park in the Lonely Planet, I was a little worried that it would be a crappy zoo and a sad experience, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. Before we get to the tiger park itself, I should mention my journey out there. I took my first bus without a problem to speak of (except my feet basically froze to the floorboards, but thats par for the course with -30 temperatures). I had to switch buses to cross over to Sun Island where the park was and that took a little wandering and questioning street vendors about the location of different buses. Eventually I found the correct bus rolling down the road, so I sprinted out and hailed it. I hopped on and found 3 white people on the bus! The first thought that went through my head was "Sweet! These clowns must be heading to the same place that I'm going, now I can't get lost." Sure enough we all got off the bus at its final stop, which I can only describe as a winter wasteland. There were very few buildings in the area and only 2 people (one of whom fishtailed while riding his motorcycle, crashed, swore, and then went on his way). We were dumbfounded and lost. We ran down the other person, who pointed us in the right direction before going on her merry way too (she was off to make dumplings at a factory, no lie). Anyways, eventually we stumbled down this road, got picked up in a van, and finally ended up at the tiger park. The park was actually really cool! It was a HUGE area (imagine Jurassic Park) and we drove around in these buses and saw tons of tigers hanging out. Tigers are HUGE! End to end I think a full grown tiger might be 7 or 8 feet long (plus a tail). Their heads and paws are massive! I definitely would not want to be attacked by one of them... Oh, the other awesome thing about the tiger park is that you could buy livestock (chicken, duck, or a COW!) to feed to the tigers. A bunch of the Chinese tourists bought chickens for the tigers. The chickens were a sad bunch and barely lasted a second. The tigers would have made short work of just about anything alive though. Pretty intense.
After the checking out the tiger park, I returned to the main downtown area of Harbin and hung out for the rest of the afternoon and evening with my three new friends. It was really nice to chat it up with Jim, Amy, and Rob - all really cool people who had just finished up a Peace Corps tour in Southwestern China. We traded China stories and chatted over chuanr, beer, and hot pot. A very relaxing and pleasant afternoon :)
Time for a random note about Harbin. Everybody in China is supposed to learn (and speak) Mandarin in school, but each region still has its own dialect that can be almost impossible to understand if you are from a different region. Harbinren speak a variety of putonghua (Mandarin) that involves a lot of rrrrrrrrrs. This kind of makes them sound like Shrek with a fishhook in his mouth at all times and makes it very difficult for me to understand. For example, I was chatting with my cabbie yesterday and I asked him what his favorite food was. He said "huorrrrrrrrr guorrrrr" (instead of "huo guo"). Hmmm, hard to describe unless you speak some Mandarin, but the point is that people from Harbin sound funny.
Oh, I also want to make an addition to yesterday's post. After visiting the Jewish museum in Harbin, I should make note of the Chinese attitude toward Jews. Oddly enough, it is one of admiration and enthusiasm. Chinese people think very highly of Jewish people and insist that they are the best people on Earth. This has to be the only place in the world that Jewish stereotypes are viewed positively. Very unusual. My theory is that intelligence, fine arts prowess, and financial knowledge (three stereotypes associated with Jewish people) are all very highly regarded traits in Chinese society.
Pray for warmer temperatures tomorrow...
- Jon
After the checking out the tiger park, I returned to the main downtown area of Harbin and hung out for the rest of the afternoon and evening with my three new friends. It was really nice to chat it up with Jim, Amy, and Rob - all really cool people who had just finished up a Peace Corps tour in Southwestern China. We traded China stories and chatted over chuanr, beer, and hot pot. A very relaxing and pleasant afternoon :)
Time for a random note about Harbin. Everybody in China is supposed to learn (and speak) Mandarin in school, but each region still has its own dialect that can be almost impossible to understand if you are from a different region. Harbinren speak a variety of putonghua (Mandarin) that involves a lot of rrrrrrrrrs. This kind of makes them sound like Shrek with a fishhook in his mouth at all times and makes it very difficult for me to understand. For example, I was chatting with my cabbie yesterday and I asked him what his favorite food was. He said "huorrrrrrrrr guorrrrr" (instead of "huo guo"). Hmmm, hard to describe unless you speak some Mandarin, but the point is that people from Harbin sound funny.
Oh, I also want to make an addition to yesterday's post. After visiting the Jewish museum in Harbin, I should make note of the Chinese attitude toward Jews. Oddly enough, it is one of admiration and enthusiasm. Chinese people think very highly of Jewish people and insist that they are the best people on Earth. This has to be the only place in the world that Jewish stereotypes are viewed positively. Very unusual. My theory is that intelligence, fine arts prowess, and financial knowledge (three stereotypes associated with Jewish people) are all very highly regarded traits in Chinese society.
Pray for warmer temperatures tomorrow...
- Jon
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Harbin: Part II
The day started off with great promise. I walked out into the shockingly cold air only to run smack into a tiny little man wearing a military army coat and yelling about the potatoes he had for sale. Now, there wouldn't really be anything unusual about this event (pretty standard for China), but I noticed that this man had a distinguishing facial feature. Well, facial feature is a stretch I guess - this man has snot frozen right on his face. It's cold out!!!
My day was one of ups and downs (note: I consider this man's frozen snot a definite up, I laughed about that for a good 15 minutes). Things started out with a trip to Harbin's New Synagogue where I learned all about the 20,000 jews who moved to Harbin around the turn of the century and basically turned it into the bustling industrial city that it is today. The museum was pretty cool and it had a definitive Chinese flavor (besides the obvious misspellings and the like). The main focus of the museum seemed to be three-fold:
(1) Chinese people are awesome for welcoming the Jews into China
(2) The Jews who moved to Harbin are amazing for building industry
(3) Jews are very smart and are particularly good at playing musical instruments. Another interesting point of note, I had the museum all to myself (apparently the old synagogue/museum is not a huge tourist destination). Oh, I was also able to pass off my Dwight School teacher's ID card as a student ID and got into the museum for free :)
After the synagogue/museum I decided to check out the famous church and square in the area. Tour of the religions so far... Anyways, the square was pretty sweet and the church looked cool (made for some good photo ops). Everything in the area was aritecturely VERY Russian - beautiful stone building, onion domes galore, etc... The other amusing thing about the church is that it was blasting bad pop music at high volume from big amps throughout the whole square. There is only one explanation - Chinese associate Christianity with America and America with Britney Spears. On my trek over to the church I also learned a valuable lesson about navigating Harbin - go underground whenever possible. There are blocks and blocks of subterrean malls all over the place (probably because its too cold to walk around above ground) that make for a very convenient and down-right pleasant way to walk around town.
Ok, one negative note: Lonely Planet's entry on Harbin sucks. It is out-dated and pretty poorly done to begin with... Many of the restaurants listed are no longer in existence and directions to other places that do exist are just wrong. Bah. Usually I have nothing but praise for Lonely Planet, but not here...
I'm writing an awful lot in this entry, so I'm going to wind things up a little bit quicker. I spent the rest of the day wandering around a beautiful walking street in downtown Harbin, Stalin Park by the river, and Zhaoling Park which was also nearby. The whole area was filled with tons of beautifully carved ice sculptures. Highlights include:
(1) all of the ice-related activities in Stalin Park (picture dog-sleds pulling tourists around on the ice, sleds and luges for racing down man-made mountains, weird sleds with metal poles for people to use
(2) the "Russian goods" stores that sold only vodka, Russian dolls, chocolate, and army surplus
(3) CHUANR. I think I ate at least a dozen chuanr today. Harbin has the delicious meat chuanr and also the candied fruit chuanr. I think I'm addicted...
Here are a couple of things that I've noticed about Harbin (besides the cold):
(1) They rarely use any coin change here. I'm currently carrying around a handful of 1 yuan notes in my wallet. Pain in my butt. My theory is that people don't like the coins because their fingers are so cold that they can't use them to pick out the individual coins.
(2) There is something to the rumor that Dongbeiren are tall. I've noticed that I can't see over most of the crowds over here. Sad, but true.
(3) Girls here wear a lot more make-up than in the rest of China. Maybe because they are super-pale from never seeing the sun? Wait, being pale is good in China... No theories on this one.
(4) They share cabs with complete strangers here. One person will hire a cab and start going to his/her destination. While driving, the cabbie will be on the lookout for more passengers (by that I mean yelling "ni qu nar" out the window at any pedestrians). Anybody going in the same direction just hops in the cab. I've yet to figure out how the payment system is supposed to work, but I have a feeling that people are freeloading off me. Ah well, more power to them I guess.
As a final note, I was traveling today without toilet paper. Consequently, we must mourn the loss of two pages of my book that will never return. After this unfortunate incident I stopped in KFC and picked up enough napkins to last me through the week. The Colonel comes through in the clutch again.
Tomorrow will bring many new adventures I'm sure, but thats it for now!
- Jon
My day was one of ups and downs (note: I consider this man's frozen snot a definite up, I laughed about that for a good 15 minutes). Things started out with a trip to Harbin's New Synagogue where I learned all about the 20,000 jews who moved to Harbin around the turn of the century and basically turned it into the bustling industrial city that it is today. The museum was pretty cool and it had a definitive Chinese flavor (besides the obvious misspellings and the like). The main focus of the museum seemed to be three-fold:
(1) Chinese people are awesome for welcoming the Jews into China
(2) The Jews who moved to Harbin are amazing for building industry
(3) Jews are very smart and are particularly good at playing musical instruments. Another interesting point of note, I had the museum all to myself (apparently the old synagogue/museum is not a huge tourist destination). Oh, I was also able to pass off my Dwight School teacher's ID card as a student ID and got into the museum for free :)
After the synagogue/museum I decided to check out the famous church and square in the area. Tour of the religions so far... Anyways, the square was pretty sweet and the church looked cool (made for some good photo ops). Everything in the area was aritecturely VERY Russian - beautiful stone building, onion domes galore, etc... The other amusing thing about the church is that it was blasting bad pop music at high volume from big amps throughout the whole square. There is only one explanation - Chinese associate Christianity with America and America with Britney Spears. On my trek over to the church I also learned a valuable lesson about navigating Harbin - go underground whenever possible. There are blocks and blocks of subterrean malls all over the place (probably because its too cold to walk around above ground) that make for a very convenient and down-right pleasant way to walk around town.
Ok, one negative note: Lonely Planet's entry on Harbin sucks. It is out-dated and pretty poorly done to begin with... Many of the restaurants listed are no longer in existence and directions to other places that do exist are just wrong. Bah. Usually I have nothing but praise for Lonely Planet, but not here...
I'm writing an awful lot in this entry, so I'm going to wind things up a little bit quicker. I spent the rest of the day wandering around a beautiful walking street in downtown Harbin, Stalin Park by the river, and Zhaoling Park which was also nearby. The whole area was filled with tons of beautifully carved ice sculptures. Highlights include:
(1) all of the ice-related activities in Stalin Park (picture dog-sleds pulling tourists around on the ice, sleds and luges for racing down man-made mountains, weird sleds with metal poles for people to use
(2) the "Russian goods" stores that sold only vodka, Russian dolls, chocolate, and army surplus
(3) CHUANR. I think I ate at least a dozen chuanr today. Harbin has the delicious meat chuanr and also the candied fruit chuanr. I think I'm addicted...
Here are a couple of things that I've noticed about Harbin (besides the cold):
(1) They rarely use any coin change here. I'm currently carrying around a handful of 1 yuan notes in my wallet. Pain in my butt. My theory is that people don't like the coins because their fingers are so cold that they can't use them to pick out the individual coins.
(2) There is something to the rumor that Dongbeiren are tall. I've noticed that I can't see over most of the crowds over here. Sad, but true.
(3) Girls here wear a lot more make-up than in the rest of China. Maybe because they are super-pale from never seeing the sun? Wait, being pale is good in China... No theories on this one.
(4) They share cabs with complete strangers here. One person will hire a cab and start going to his/her destination. While driving, the cabbie will be on the lookout for more passengers (by that I mean yelling "ni qu nar" out the window at any pedestrians). Anybody going in the same direction just hops in the cab. I've yet to figure out how the payment system is supposed to work, but I have a feeling that people are freeloading off me. Ah well, more power to them I guess.
As a final note, I was traveling today without toilet paper. Consequently, we must mourn the loss of two pages of my book that will never return. After this unfortunate incident I stopped in KFC and picked up enough napkins to last me through the week. The Colonel comes through in the clutch again.
Tomorrow will bring many new adventures I'm sure, but thats it for now!
- Jon
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